


How many 'I love you's matter? Only the ones I say to you.

by Phenix_Ashes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, also eveybody dies, but if you do that means i wrote something good, sorry - Freeform, sorry you're gonna hate me, there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7257412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phenix_Ashes/pseuds/Phenix_Ashes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you say 'I love you' for the first time, you’re gazing at the stars and whispering it more to them than to me , and I pretend I haven't heard it.</p><p>The last time I say 'I love you', I'm looking right at her eyes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	How many 'I love you's matter? Only the ones I say to you.

When you say 'I love you' for the first time, you’re gazing at the stars and whispering it more to them than to me , and I pretend I haven't heard it. Not because I don't love you. God knows that's not true. But because you're a boy, coming from a strict family, and I'm only a poor excuse of a human. I can't let you do that to yourself. So I take the hit and make my face more oblivious. With an ignorant smile, I ask if you said something. And you, without meeting my eyes, deny it.

When you say 'I love you' for the second time, I nearly answer. But then again, it’s not the right time. You are drunk, nearly falling off your feet. It's your best mate’s wedding -your brother’s really- and the whole day has felt like a kind of heaven. A shelter from this fucking war. So when you look at me with all the trust and the happiness in the world, I know you won't remember any of it by morning. So again, I take the blow, and doing the cowardliest thing I can think of, I smile at you and tell you to go to bed. Finding out, the next morning, that I was right -that you didn't remember any of these words- was the most bittersweet thing that has ever happened to me.

When you say 'I love you' for the third time, I have no other choice than to hear it. You're standing in front of me, soaked with ashes and blood, your face no longer human. There is madness in your eyes. But then, you just murdered your family. Not the one you were born with -this one you'll have to bear it till your grave- but the one you chose, you built over the years. The one that carried you through laughs, tears, happiness, and mourning. You just killed them.  
And now, you're standing in front of me, with this manic grin of yours, saying that it wasn’t you. That you know who did this and that you're going to avenge them.  
Just before you leave, you say these words one last time. But I don't want to hear them, so I curl into myself, and cry and cry and cry.

_Little did I know that these would be the last words I would hear from you in twelve years._

The fifth time you say 'I love you', you are standing in front of me. But this time, there is no madness within you. Only uncertainty that after all these years, I couldn't love you back. And me, such a foolish creature, I finally give in.

The first time I say 'I love you', your eyes are wild, your heart is beating faster than I have ever heard. Your mouth is open like you want to say something, but the words aren't coming out. You're frozen into a statue of surprise and relief. You're a masterpiece and I can't keep my eyes away.

The sixth, seventh, eighth and all the next times you say 'I love you', I always respond with 'I love you too'.

_You know what's coming next. You dread it. And you're not the only one._

The last time you say 'I love you', everything is still golden. We're still at war, and it’s more dangerous than before, but we're together. Everything will be fine.

_I should have known that saying these words would not make them true._

The very last time you say 'I love you', the words don't leave your lips, you are already dead. Caught between a heartbeat. I watch you leave, paralyzed by the hole I feel in my chest. Who would have known that not hearing these words would be worse than not being able to stop them?

You knew, didn't you? You knew about the hole in the chest, about the tears on the cheeks. You knew about the broken voice and the broken heart. But you didn't really know about the broken heart. For you, there has always been a little hope left. But when you're dead, what good can feelings do? I feel lonelier than I've ever been. And, ironically, more human too. Only people can suffer like this.

The second first time I say 'I love you', it doesn't feel as bad as I thought it would. Of course, it's painful. She's not you after all. Of course, I feel like my heart is burning, like my mind is turning into shards of glass, like my soul is tearing itself apart. Of course, I'm aware of that. But it is the only way I can dull the pain of this frozen hole in my chest. It works. A little bit.

After that, I lose count. Not because I can't do it anymore, but because these ‘I love you’s, even if they are important, can never matter as much as all the ones I should have told you. I say 'I love you' to my wife when we are on patrol, gazing at the stars, but she's too lost in them to hear it. I say 'I love you' to my son, just before I go into battle. And I'm sad because I'm sure he won't remember it in the morning. I say 'I love you' another hundred times, and every time I mean it. But it doesn't change the fact that this hole is still there. That it won't go away.

The last time I say 'I love you', I'm looking right at her eyes. In front of us stands an army of the most powerful sorcerers the world has ever known. At our side, the other half. She still has hope. She still firmly believes that we’ll see our son tomorrow morning, after everything is over. I don’t.

_The fact that I don't remember the last time I hoped does not frighten me as much as it should. That says a lot about me._

We fight. We win. We lose. We die.

_Now, you're all thinking that I will tell you about the next time I’ll say 'I love you' to him. You want our story to transcend death itself. You want a happy ending. I wish I could give you that._

_I wish I could tell you about our reunion. About how words wouldn’t be needed. About the hole in my chest that will slowly disappear with every step I’ll take. About the light and the happiness and the love. I wish it could end like that._

_Instead, I can only tell you about the pain of the curse. About the empty feeling of loss and the sad sound of cries._

_I don’t see her death. God is kind enough to kill me before her. But not enough to kill me before_ him.

_I don't remember anything after that. Only fading away into the darkness, the sound of the battle dissolving into thin air. I can't see anything. I can't feel anything. There is only this empty hole, consuming me whole._

_There won't be a poetic sentence at the end of my life. Neither a memory of the man that made it worth living. Death is not like that. It takes you before you can finish your sentence. Between a heartbeat and the next._

_It doesn't let you say goodbye, so why would it let me say 'I love you' one last time?_

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have a tissue.
> 
> I was in the _wolfstar_ tag on tumblr and... well... nothing happy comes out of this tag. I should have known.


End file.
